Exotic
by metawohoo
Summary: Babs is a detective. It's a family thing - except Dad is a lawyer like Grandad was, and there's only one cop, and it's Uncle Jim. But Babs is a detective all the same, and she notices things. Like, you know, how Uncle Jim changes his sheets every day, which means he probably still wets the bed. (Implied slash)


Babs puts on her mask and cape. They are new and smell like plastic, freshly unwrapped as they are. She tugs at the mask to see better, jumps, and turns, and studies her reflection to see how the cape flows and twirls. Once sure that she's _badass_ \- that's what she is! - she grabs her sword and races out of the room.

Her opponent looks defeated even before she reaches him.

"Oh no", he says. "Not again, no, no, no! Young lady, it's past bedtime!"

###

Babs is a detective. It's a family thing - except Dad is a lawyer like Grandad was, and there's only one cop, and it's Uncle Jim. But Babs is a detective all the same, and she notices things. Like, you know, how Uncle Jim changes his sheets every day, which means he probably still wets the bed. It's okay, though, she won't tell. She's not mean. It stills happens to her every three months or so, but it's not her fault she dreams she's using the toilet, right?

She notices that everything is clean and dusted in the flat, except for what isn't because her uncle panic-cleaned before she arrived (like Dad does when he makes himself his everything-goes sandwiches and gets the kitchen all messy just before Mom comes home). Uncle Jim missed spots, like Daddy does, and they're covered in a _ton_ of dust, at least a century's worth.

Another thing is the nine cigarette _bottoms_ on the balcony, even though he swears he doesn't smoke. But Babs knows better, because his room smells like tobacco.

She also sees how he looks relieved when the doorbell rings, like someone is coming to rescue him from a max-murderer.

Of course, with him in front of the open door, she can't see who just arrived, so she jumps a bit higher on the sofa to try to sneak a peek. Curious eyes look up and down and up and down at her.

"Did you adopt the plague of locusts?", the man says.

He looks a bit like a bear, and the grizzly kind, not the Mr Tubby Bear kind. She stops jumping, and it takes a moment, because momentum.

"Har har har. This is my niece, Barbara. Her parents are on a trip."

"You have a niece named Barbara."

Uncle Jim glares.

"She's how old?"

"I'm four", Babs volunteers when no one else answers. "And everyone calls me Babs, except Mom who calls me Pumpkin. Because I have red hair, see."

"You have a niece named Barbara who is four years old."

"Yes, Harvey, I have a niece named Barbara who is four years old."

"So you weren't kidding when you said your brother hated you."

"My Dad doesn't hate him!", she protests, hopping closer to "Harvey".

"Really?"

"No. He always says 'I really like James, it's just that I wish he had more ambition'."

A few minutes later, when Harvey is done laughing, her uncle introduces him.

"He's my partner, from work, detective Bullock", he explains. "He's here because he needs help with a case. Can you please, please go play nicely and quietly for a while? Maybe draw something pretty? Maybe draw _Zorro_?"

Babs inspects Harvey a little more. He's not very fit for a cop, and he smells like Dad. That's _not _a good sign, because Mom always gets angry because of that smell. So it's probably better to just stay away. There's comics in the gazette anyway.

###

Of course, twenty minutes later, she is done and she is bored.

Uncle Jim and Harvey are nice-arguing. They're complaining about each other, but they don't sound angry. They sound like they are having fun.

"Well, I can't stand Alvarez, I swear he's worse than you", detective Bullock is saying. "Insists on overtime. F...ridge his overtime."

Barbara creeps closer. _Real_ police files all over the table. It's like the Graal, except in paper, and with less wizards and knights and kings and swords. Pretty much "something she really wants to see up close".

Uncle Jim is digging into a box of things, and not looking her way, and Harvey is watching Uncle Jim. The way is clear, so she moves in and starts reading.

"Don't leave the files on the table, Harv", says her uncle who has eyes behind the head. "She can read them."

"She can't _read_ them! She's_ four_!"

So he says, so he says. The papers are all very business-like. Numbers and dates and more numbers and "causes of death" and then words that make no sense at all. She has to ask.

"What's exotic asphyxiation?"

"HARVEY WHAT DID I TELL YOU!"

The files disappear, snatched by her uncle who is just _frantic_ (she likes the word frantic because it sounds not frantic at all, unlike "frenzy", and you hear it less often except when Dad speaks about culprits). Harvey looks at her for a long, long time, and he looks _unfazed_.

"It's when you choke on Hawaiian food."

"Oh."

That makes sense.

Uncle Jim looks at her, then at his partner, then at her again. Then he frowns, stacks the files into a neat pile, and put them back into a box.

"In case I didn't mention it a thousand times before, she's a child prodigy. Very very smart. They tested her and all."

"Color me impressed."

"And it's getting late and absolutely time for a nap, I think. Help yourself to whatever is in the fridge while I tuck her in."

"But I'm not tired!"

"Do you have beer?", Harvey asks.

"There's a kid in the house!"

"And she's _not tired_!"

"My bad. Vodka then?"

Uncle Jim just groans and drags Babs to her room.

###

She's not tired but she sleeps for three hours all the same, and when she wakes, Harvey is gone and the living room smells like tobacco despite the open window.

###

"So why do you have two shoosh'rushes?", Barbara asks in the bathroom the next morning.

"Because dental hygiene is very important, that's why. And spit before talking. Just _this _time, not every time you speak from now on", he adds.

"And why do you have four different bottles of cologne?"

"Why do you have seventeen sticks of pink gloss?"

"Point. What are we doing today?"

"Park, supermarket, then work for me and Zorro for you. Harvey came back yesterday evening, when you were already sleeping. He rented all the movies for you."

"ALL of them?"

Uncle Jim grunts.

"Yes, _all_ of them. We'll have to return them before you can actually watch them all, because I think keeping rental tapes for fourteen years would get costly."

She looks at him, frowns, and waits for an explanation that never comes.

They go to the park (but it rains, because GOTHAM CITY), and the supermarket (where the "oh please Uncle Jim, can I have fruit loops?" trick works wonders), and then she watches Zorro. Then she goes to the kitchen to grab a new bottle of lemonade, and Harvey is talking with her uncle in the living room. She gets closer, and they're _both_ eating Thai take-out and didn't even ask her if she wanted some (maybe because the fruit loops box is nearly empty by now).

"... and maybe we should decide how serious this is now", he says to her uncle as she gets closer to say "hi", "because I'm down to my last condom and I don't want to keep doling out the cash for more if we don't need 'em."

"Final", Babs corrects.

Harvey jumps.

"HOLY HELL!"

He looks a bit like he just had a heart attack, and takes a second to breathe in.

"Don't sneak up on people like that! I swear you're worse than an unplanned pregnancy."

This is the day of really weird sentences that will not be explained, apparently, because she waits for a moment and he doesn't clarify.

"What do you mean, final?", he asks instead.

"Final condom."

"What?"

"_Final condom_", she repeats.

He looks dense. He _is_ dense. Maybe she needs to explain better, because he does not get it.

"Like the _song_! Nananana... NanananaNA. Ooooooh. It's the final condom."

There's a long moment of silence before he snaps.

"COUNTDOWN. It doesn't even sound _remotely_ the same! Aren't you supposed to be a prodigy or some..."

He stops because of the coughing noise, and turns. Babs turns.

"He's dying! He's dying!", she screams, because Uncle Jim is choking on his Thai food and spiting orange sauce all over his sleeve.

So Harvey pats his back until he can breathe again, and rolls his eyes and snorts.

"I take it back, you're worse than Alvarez. D'you imagine the paperwork if I had killed you with shrimp? And the overtime, for f...udge's sake."

###

A week later, Babs is home, and she wishes someone would tell her why her Mom won't stop laughing when she tells her Uncle Jim's partner saved him from exotic asphyxiation.


End file.
